A fuel-cell-powered aircraft set a world record by staying aloft for a whopping 23 hours and 17 minutes on just a single load.

In fact, the unmanned aircraft broke the previous record by double. Of course, the plane was built by the Naval Research Laboratory and not by students from the University of Michigan. Still, those students kept their plane in air for over 10 hours–impressive!

Of course their plane was only $2,500. I am guessing the Navy-built one cost us a whole lot more.

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BMW’s Simple concept–which kinda looks like a Stealth Bomber with training wheels–is a hybrid trike that gets around 120 mpg.

The Simple (which stands for Sustainable and Innovative Mobility Product for Low Energy consumption) does 60 mph in just under ten seconds and has a top speed of 125 mph. The car weighs just over 900 lbs and has a super low drag coefficient of 0.18.

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At the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show, Honda will be unveiling a new electric car concept called the EV-N that comes with a segway-esque mobility unicycle device called the UX-3 — so you never have to walk again…ever!

Honda will showcase the model at its green-themed display called the HELLO! Zone which is devoted to electric cars.

The EV-N, which kinda looks like a Japanimation version of a Mini Cooper, shouldn’t be shrugged off as just some copycat car. Aside from the oddly-cool, and strangely intriguing, robotic unicycle, the EV-N also has swappable seat fabrics, a solar roof and some color-adjustable “communications system.”

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Students from West Philadelphia High School have built a diesel-hybrid race car that goes from 0-60 in four seconds. While the car currently gets 60+ mpg, they hope to soon break 100 mpg.

Why? They are competing for $10 million in the Automotive X-Prize .

Called the Hybrid Attack, the car was built by kids from West Philly’s Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering. And if that alone doesn’t make them cool, they are the only high school team competing out of 90 different teams from the U.S. and overseas.

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Carriage Built in 1830s Uses Non-Rechargeable Batteries

Robert Anderson built a crude electric carriage in the 1830s using non-rechargeable batteries. It eventually became the rechargeable Detroit Electric (1907 - 1939) which in one test run achieved a 211.3 mile range and a top speed of 20 MPH. It was mainly marketed to women who didn’t want to bother with hand cranking an engine.

Blacksmith Builds First Electric Rail Car in 1834

Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith in Vermont, read about John Henry’s electric motor in Silliman’s Journal. He played with the concept and made it spin. Davenport saw his invention as a replacement for steam to drive locomotives, and used it to make a small model electric rail car in 1834.

French-Built Electric Car Sets First Word Land Speed Record

In 1881 Charles Jeantaud, along with help from battery-inventor Camille Faure, built France’s first electric vehicle. A formidable vehicle weighing over 3,000lbs that set the first land speed record going 39.24 mph.

College Dropout Builds Electric Trike in Parent’s Basement

In 1884 Andrew L. Riker dropped out of school and started experimenting with electric motors and a Coventry bicycle. The result was a two-passenger trike that had a 25 mile range using a series of lead-sulfuric acid batteries. Like the bikes of that time it had a tubular steel frame, wire wheels, and pneumatic tires.

First Successful American-Built Electric Car Seats Six

In 1890 William Morrison built America’s first successful electric car. It was a six-passenger wagon capable of reaching a speed of 14 miles per hour.

Electric Car That Inspires America’s First Electric Car Company

Designed and built in 1894 the Electrobat was a small version of a battery streetcar, it was a slow, heavy, impractical vehicle with steel tires to support the immense weight of its large lead battery. But it did lead to the Morris & Salom Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, the first electric car company in America.

New York City Gets a Fleet of Electric Taxi Cabs

In 1897 the first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City. Amazingly, NYC is just now starting to offer hybrid and electric taxis again.

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Volkswagen will display an updated version of its 1-Liter concept this week at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The diesel-hybrid car which only weighs around 800 lbs gets an jaw-dropping 170 MPG. So who wants one?

It was seven years ago when VW first announced the idea. Dr. Ferdinand Piëch–currently the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group–drove a prototype of the car from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. It was the world’s first car to travel 100 kilometers on just a single liter of fuel. But the concept wasn’t ready for production as the body’s carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) was too costly for consideration.

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Shaq Wants Your Leftover Beer and Wine for Making Ethanol

First, who ever has leftover alcohol except maybe these guys? The Shaq-backed MicroFueler is a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, that converts it into pure ethanol. It also doubles as a fuel pump and the only waste product is distilled water.

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Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst evolved a new strain of the Geobacter microbe that increases power output per cell by 800%.

The hairy mud-loving microbe uses its hairlike filaments–called pili–to produce an electric current from both mud and waste water. The pili are only 5 nanometers in diameter (20,000 times smaller than a human hair); they’re also a thousand times longer than they are wide. But they are strong!

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Garage-Built Car Gets 105 MPG, Cost $2,500 To Build

Frustrated with the price of filling up his Toyota, Jory Squibb built the Moonbeam. It has been to the Altwheels Festival in Boston twice and has traveled over 10,000 miles. It is powered by a 150 cc gas engine and carries two passengers “if they are on good terms,” he says.

15 Students Turn A ‘76 Porsche Into A Fully Electric Car

The car was converted into a electric vehicle using 18 U-Charge® XP Lithium Phosphate batteries…and 15 MIT students. The electric version has similar driving performance to the original vehicle, with the added advantage of regenerative braking. It has a range of about 100 miles on a full charge.

Hybrid Trike Uses Diesel, Electric, And Pedal-Power

The Tri-Hybrid Stealth is a two seat, 3-wheeled vehicle that is powered by a diesel engine, an electric motor and the driver’s legs. For reals. It’s also the first hybrid trike to offer exclusive hand controls and an automated extendable seat for handicapped drivers.

Biomass Powered Truck Runs On Wood And Cardboard

Dave Nichols , a 42-year-old home builder and auto shop owner from eastern Connecticut, modified his 1989 Ford F-150 pickup truck to run on wood, leaves, cardboard and other “biomass” with a fuel system that he says expels virtually no pollution. Dave’s entry was the only truck in the competition.

Diesel-Powered Trike Built Almost Entirely Of Aluminum

The super-light Roopod, built by an Industrial Designer from western Massachusetts, is powered by a 2-cylinder diesel engine. Inspiration for the car came when he realized his V-dub weighed 3,000 pounds. “For every gallon of gas that I put in, 90 percent of it is being used to drive the car, and 10 percent to drive me, and that’s just stupid,’’ he said.

Three-Wheeled Green Grand Prix Winner

Built by Bill Buchholz, the Dirigo is a three-wheeled diesel two passenger vehicle that has a top speed of 72mph and does 0-60 about 30 seconds. It recently won its class in the Green Grand Prix, averaging 90 MPG. Um, can you tell it was designed by boat builders?

Gaia, The 300 MPG Trike

Built by Ken Fry, he says the vehicle will deliver 300 mpge with an electric range of about 30 miles and a top-speed of 90 mph. How? Well the car only weighs 540 pounds.

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LiveFuels, Inc. hopes to make a renewable fuel using processed algae-fed fish.

The company–who develops renewable algae-based biofuels–has a test facility in Brownsville, TX. At the location they have 45 acres of open saltwater ponds which will be used for optimizing the algal production.

Most algae-to-biofuel companies are limited to monomcultures of algae, but LiveFuels plans to grow a mix of regional species in low-cost, open-water systems. The algae will be “harvested” with filter-feeding fish and other aquatic herbivores.

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Texas Teen Buys Car Off eBay, Makes It Electric

Luke Laborde turned a 32 mpg gas-burning Bradley GT II kit car into a fully electric ride for just about $10,000. The ride, which was purchased off eBay, has eight 80-pound batteries throughout including where the gas tank used to be. The car gets 40 miles on a full charge.

Student Built Race Car Is Powered By Soybeans

Five kids from West Philly’s high school auto shop class, ex-gang members and high school dropouts built this soybean-powered race car. The car gets 50+ mpg and goes from 0 to 60 in just 4 seconds! But the real win here is how the experience impacted these kids. One of the few still in high school, Kosi Harmon, went from getting D’s to being a straight-A student.

8th Grader Builds Solar-Powered Bike With GPS, iPod Dock

Eighth-grader David S. Dixon built this street-legal quadricycle powered by a solar-charged electric motor. The bike not only carries his dog and three friends, but it has also has an iPod dock and GPS. Ya, it’s that cool!

16 Year Old Converts 1988 Mazda Truck To A Plugin EV

Andrew Angelloti, after saving up $6,000 as a part time lifeguard, converted his very own truck to be a plug-in. Using 20 flooded lead acid batteries to create 120 volts and a 60 HP electric motor, the truck hits a top speed of 55 mph and has range of 40 miles. Best part, he blogs about it so others can mod their cars. You can check out his blog here.

15 Year Old Builds Air-Powered Ride Back In 1989

This air-powered car was covered by KODE Channel 12 of Joplin, MO back in 1989. You can tell by VHS-to-YouTube quality of the video. The idea was pitched to car companies but largely ignored.

Alaskan Teen Converts 1971 VW Super Beetle To Electric Car

While some VW enthusiasts are still waiting for the car company to tap the electric car market (one of those being me), senior Bart Grabman has beat them to the punch. Whether or not Bart can see Russia from his house, he has my vote! Though…can I get mine in one of these?

BMW’s new ActiveHybrid X6 promises to be the world’s most powerful hybrid with 480 hp (358 kW) and 575 lb-ft of torque (780 N·m).

The ActiveHybrid X6 will hit 60 mph in just under 6 seconds all while providing a 20-percent fuel savings according to the EU test-cycle. The EU also gave it a CO2  rating of 231 g/km.  EPA numbers aren’t yet available.

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The number of large-diameter trees in Yosemite National Park have declined 24-percent between the 1930s and 1990s.

The findings are based on a study done by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington. Scientists compared tree densities from 1932-1936 to those from 1988-1999 where large-diameter trees are those with a diameter greater than three feet.

Along with large-diameter tree loss, they also found a shift to fire-intolerant trees. Amazingly, this shift was experienced in areas that hadn’t seen a wildfire in nearly a century. Trees changed from fire-tolerant ponderosa pines to fire-intolerant white fir and incense cedar. In burned areas, however, the pines remained dominant.

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It’s an odd week for fuel sources. On the heels of a Mountain Dew powered engine, UK supermarket Tesco is getting flack for turning meat into energy–yah, you read that right.

The food chain is burning 5,000 tons of inedible meat for fuel. The biomass processing is being handled by the Cheshire-based PDM Group. The meat-energy is then used to power UK homes via the National Grid.

In fact, Tesco says they dispose of enough old meat to power 600 homes a year!

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I’ll admit, never saw this one coming–using Mountain Dew as fuel. It surely makes the Mountain Dew Game Fuel much more appropriate!

Inventor Paul Patone has created the GEET (Global Environmental Energy Technology) Fuel Processor. A mod that allows you to run your car on about 80% water. Or possibly, just a nice cold Tab.

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MIT students are developing an electric car that could easily compete with petro-based vehicles.

Using a 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid and 7,905 lithium iron-phosphate batteries, the car fully charges in about 10 minutes. Whereas most EVs require overnight charging to reach full capacity, this is clearly a game changer.

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It’s official. Last week, German automaker Mercedes-Benz confirmed its intentions to build a fully electric version of the SLS AMG Supercar.

The AWD car will have separate transmissions for both axles and electric motors at each wheel. With a combined power output of 392 Kw–which packs 649 lb-ft of torque–the car will get a jaw-dropping 526 horsepower.

This will push the zero-emission car from 0 to 62 MPH in just 4 seconds! All of this is available the moment the motors turn. Are you drooling yet? I am.

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Turkish students at Sakarya University have built a hydrogen car that gets 1,336 mpg. Well, sorta.

Called the SAHİMO, the vehicle’s current range is about 353 miles on a quarter gallon of fuel (568 kilometers on 1 liter). It travels such an obscene distance with so little fuel due to the vehicle’s uber-light weight: it weighs only 240 pounds (110 kilograms). The car’s made up of 90-percent carbon fiber.

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Come July 14th, a new “green” McDonald’s will be opening in Cary, NC. It will be the first U.S. location for the fast food chain to offer electric car recharging.

The restaurant–located at 1299 Kildaire Farm Road in Cary–will be using a ChargePoint station to provide the service. ChargePoint is a private fee-based network of charging stations. They provide grid access and related services for owners of plug-in cars.

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Designed for the BMW Motorrad Innovation Contest, the Halbo turns saving the planet into an extreme sport.

Conceived by designer Pierre Yohanes Lubis, the electric bike is much more planet friendly than say a petro-based vehicle. But, if the concept were to become popular it’s just unsafe enough to thin the herd.

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